Larry Norman: From his hospital bed, the veteran talks about rock 'n roll, life and death

Jan Willem Vink interviews the Jesus rock veteran.

"Not really. My ministry is telling the gospel, not singing it. That's
why I talk in between songs, because that's where the message comes
from, not through the music. There's a message in the music, but
people don't usually decide to become a Christian because they hear
you sing. They're watching your performance when you're singing. When
you stop singing and you start speaking in between songs -then I think
the message really comes across and can go deeper. Like when I spoke
at Greenbelt in between songs in 1984. Many people came up and said
that was the only gospel they had heard from any performer for several
years. But the Greenbelt committee banned me from the main stage at
Greenbelt and said I could never perform there again because I gave
the gospel, and that's not their policy. So I think that's funny, to
be banished for giving the gospel at a religious concert festival. If
I'm not gonna deny Christ at the end of the world, when they're taking
Christians to court and prison, why would I deny Christ now at a
Christian festival? So no, I'm not disappointed that I can't sing any
more because I can still talk about Jesus; even if I can't tour. I can
write books, or preach, tape the sermons. It doesn't matter to me. I'm
only here on Earth to serve God. I never had a career. I've destroyed
my career a hundred times, you know. I never had a career. I don't
care about commercialism. I have a ministry and I'll fight for the
ministry. I'll continue to minister until I don't have any more breath
in my body. Maybe that's a year from now, or two years from now. But
I'm happy. It's not a problem to give up rock 'n' roll."

When you had your first heart attack you came very close to
death. Did it give your message an extra urgency?

Well, when my heart stopped they thought that they couldn't get me to
come back to life. When I came back, I wasn't even aware that I had
died. I felt completely safe, and unafraid, protected. So it didn't
give me more urgency, like 'Oh, now that I am possibly going to die
soon I have to work harder.' My work is not for me, it's for God, and
there's millions of people that don't know the gospel message. I can't
take it to them. I never could take it to them. I can only reach
thousands of people, and not millions. So, there is no reason for me
to work harder. I'm already working as hard as I humanly could, for
the last twenty-five years, and I'm working for God...I'm not working
for my music, I'm not working for any manager or booking agency. So I
have no pressure on me from any human being on Earth to do more work.
I'm already working as hard as I can work and I'm doing it for God,
not the record industry."

And that's something you were doing before your first heart
attack?

"Yeah, I've been working against the stream, against the odds, since I
started recording in 1966. The record company wasn't supportive of me;
that was Capitol Records. After five years there I went to MGM Records
for three years. They weren't supportive of the gospel message they
just want the music. They don't care about Jesus. And then going to
ABC, which bought Word Records, making music, again having problems
with the company; they don't really want the entire message that I
have. They just want the things that are pleasing, so I had censorship
problems even on Solid Rock Records. So I've been working as hard as I
can, and against the flow, against the odds, ever since I started
recording. So nothing's changed. Maybe I'm trying to do too much with
music. Some singers say that they're artists, and they don't want to
put too much meaning in their music because it's front for
entertainment or it has enough of a message or because a song cannot
support a theological proposition, but this is not my belief. I think
that music is not limited and you can say a lot through your music and
you can say even more through speaking."

In interviews on your last two tours in Holland and Belgium
you talked a lot of discovering God as a father.

"Yeah, I think that the revelation of God as a benevolent, loving,
all-caring Father is not what the majority of Americans are taught.
We're taught that God is very judicious, and unrelenting in his
ferreting out of your sins, keeping a list and you're going to have to
answer for every failing upon your death. That's the God that I was
exposed to growing up in America. But then finding out that God is
all-loving toward his own children, his own sheep that know his voice
- that's made the last few years of my life completely different in
texture, and I feel that I have a lot of freedom that I never realised
was available before."

Do you think your first heart attack and what you're going
through now were experienced in a different way to what it would have
been like without knowing God as a father?

"Sure."

Can you expand on that?

"Knowing that God is waiting for me with open arms makes me feel very
eager to go and be with him. I'm not afraid that I'm going to be going
into the courtroom of Heaven when I die. I'm going to be with my
Father. I'm part of his family. So it's been very peaceful for me.
I've had three different types of heart attacks. I've had the first
kind, which was myocardial infection where my heart stopped and I lost
forty per cent of the tissue, it's dead. The next time I had problems
with congestive heart failure, and this time I had ventricular
arrhythmia tachycardia which is where the heart beats very fast. It
gets confused and pushes the blood away from the heart so you can't
breathe very easily, you're not getting enough oxygen, and you're not
getting enough blood. Each of these kinds of problems; I've just gone
through the experience with a big smile on my face. I'm in the
hospital for three or four weeks and I'm using it as an opportunity to
talk with the nurses about their family and find out how many children
they have, are they having any problems, and writing notes to their
kids, giving cassettes away and witnessing to people. Just another
opportunity to give the gospel."

've heard you have written some new songs. Can you tell me
about them?

"I write songs all the time. They just don't usually come out on
record. What usually happens is that I'll write songs when I'm not
getting ready to record, and by the time I'm making a record I've
either lost interest in the songs or I've lost the piece of paper the
songs are on, or they're just buried under other songs. So this time I
thought I'm going to just record a couple of songs if I feel well. I
just wrote them and I want to record them immediately instead of
waiting two or three years. So it's a little more fun to record an
idea two or three days after you write it."

Some artists in the new CCM magazine have named your records
in their all-time top ten favourites. Does it hurt you that you are
neglected by so much of the Christian music industry and on Christian
radio in America?

Reader Comments

Posted by Roy in Melbourne Australia @ 01:27 on Jun 14 2011

I first heard Larry in the early 70's. In particular the
track from In Another Land "I am Your servant" touched me as
I had been a Christian since 8 years old and it seemed that
I could go no where for Jesus but then in the early 70's
came a revolution and some years later I was called into
ministry as a pastor and did this for some 35 years. Many
times I remember being in tears as I listened to "Servant".

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